


A Storytelling of Rooks

by Kato



Category: Castle
Genre: Edge Play, F/M, Kate Is An Ascended Fangirl, Knifeplay, Mild BDSM, Tumblr Prompt, Way Too Meta, s6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 03:50:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1536476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kato/pseuds/Kato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Fill for tumblr prompt; full prompt inside.) S6 insert. Castle finally discovers Beckett's fansite identity and winds up learning some very surprising secrets, creating some secrets of his own along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Exposition

**Author's Note:**

> {Prompt: "Castle goes on becketts computer and finds her logged in to his fan site (so he knows her username). Then starts to flirt with her over the internet with her not knowing that he knows." - anonymous on Tumblr via castlefanficpromts.}

As she darts out of the bedroom for an early-morning meeting with Gates – something about cold cases – he quickly scans the room for a lurking redhead. All clear. One large, warm hand closes around her waist, creeping under her top, just before she gets out the front door. Castle whirls her around, soaking in the cherry scent of her hair and the silkiness of her skin. She shivers when he curls his fingers of his other hand around the back of her neck, cradling her skull and invading her mouth without warning, stroking her tongue and mapping the ridges of her. She's making those tiny little moans and whines that drive him crazy and as soon as she does, he knows it's mission accomplished. As quickly as he started, he stops, laughing at the black-and-blown look in her eyes when he separates them.

"Have a good meeting, Beckett," he intones darkly and shoves her out the door, closing it behind him just slowly enough to hear her little scream of frustration.

The city's crazies seem to be in hibernation, leaving few active unsolved homicides, and honestly? It's bumming him out. With current cases ranging from mundane to non-existent, Gates has been convinced to pull out the colds and get them working on those. Hopefully she'll call him in with an interesting one, but until then, he supposes it would behoove him to get some writing done.

Dragging his feet to his office, he finds her laptop sitting there, wide open, still on. He's not a bad fiancee – really, he's not! He can't help it if his vision is still 20/20 and the fansite has big text, can't help that he sees that she's logged in. And it's right there, right where his eyes are naturally drawn, to the upper right-hand corner...

He knew it. All this time, he'd been right. He'd suspected for years, ever since that kidnapping case when she'd accidentally revealed that she belonged to the fansite, that she was more than just a one-time login out of morbid curiosity. Her reddened cheeks, her hostility, the over-the-top definitely-hiding-something insistence that his fanbase was 'creepy.'

Caskat is an old-timer, a member since May '01. And he knows the profile well; there's a reason that was one of the names that came to his mind when he first teased her about the fansite, it was the name on his tongue when she shoved that bearclaw in his mouth to shut him up. He's responded to her comments for years under his admin profile, even before she showed up and turned his real world inside out. She's written fan articles, reviews, fic analyses,  _fan fiction_. Holy shit, he forgot about that. Her nearly decade-old Strike/Storm novella-length is legendary if the fanfic section of the forum is anything to go by. Searching his mind, he remembers that there was a huge blowup on the fanfic forum when it was mysteriously deleted off the main site two years ago, with no explanation from the author.  _Ahh, right about the time we had our encounter with Sophia. Or whatever her real name was._ But savvy readers managed to post it again off-forum, much to the chagrin of the mysterious Caskat.

That would be the end of it if he were a great man. But he can't be great all the time, so he settles for good.

Well, he's okay.

Producing his own laptop, he logs out of his official account and into his alter-ego that he uses to mingle with the fans (and post his own fanfiction; a bit of ego-stroking and the instant gratification of reviews never hurt anyone, and he wants to know how much people really like his writing, rather than just his name), unnoticed. Storytelling-of-Rooks. He'd spent days being quite proud of himself for that clever little pun.

Her profile isn't hard to find even among thousands of users. Caskat's posts have slowed in the past few years, but she's still among the first usernames to pop up when sorted by account age. He tells himself it's not like he snooped intentionally, that it's hardly an invasion of her well-protected privacy to browse the public profile of a user he's interacted with on other occasions. Even if he knows who she is now.

Her older fanfics are still posted, a mix of fandoms from various books, some with pairings, some general casefics. He finds among them, with guilty delight, a smattering of Rook/Heat fic.  _Oh_. Some of that dates all the way back to 2010. And some of it... some of it's  _recent_. He's not sure which idea turns him on more: Kate writing about their alter-egos before they were together in real life, or Kate writing about them since, perhaps pouring little details of their life into her version of Nikki, a safe form of exhibitionism. He knows she's secretly into it, and downright frustrated that they can't indulge that particular kink very often due to their mutual high-profile lives.

He spends the better part of the morning reading her novella-length Rook/Heat story, 'Maybe There's Hope.'  _Hm,_  he thinks,  _title like that, will have to see if I can get her to cop to being an X-Files fan_. It's shockingly good, stylistically very different from his own writing, but not without merit by a long-shot. In another life, perhaps they'd have been literary peers. And damned if it isn't angsty. The author's notes that come every chapter or every few chapters, and the dates posted, provide clues as to why. The whole thing was written during the four months she spent hiding from him after her shooting, and as best he can tell, it's more or less a thinly-veiled diary of her feelings and fears and everything she went through while they were apart, all the ways she suffered in silence. His chest tightens as he reads her tale of Nikki being viciously stabbed and scarred up, damaged inside and out –  _oh god, is this how she felt about herself? -_ recovering mentally and physically while Rook tries to help with very slow success and more than a few setbacks.

A few times he has to stop himself from yelling at the screen, "that's not how it was!" or summoning her home and demanding explanation, or storming the precinct to wrap himself around the real thing, to tell her how much he loves her, has always loved her even when she went away and wouldn't let him help her like she let Rook help Nikki; how she didn't have to go through that and comfort herself with writing and how if she ever has any of these lingering feelings, he'll spend the rest of his life banishing them from her. But he forges on through the heartbreak, the fear, the pain, and finally gets to the gradual returning of his alter-ego to hers, complete with mind-blowingly hot sex scenes. All this time, he's been proud of his  _Page 105_  scenes. He has nothing on her in that department. The final chapter is short; an ultimately satisfying non-ending, alluding to cautious hope for the future as long as Heat and Rook have each other, posted just as the real versions resumed their partnership.

It's heartwarming and heartrending and hot, and it's all clouded by a bizarre kind of literary uncanny valley, the strange feeling that something is too real to be fiction, but not real enough to comfortably fit into reality. He can't stop in spite of it. Maybe because of it. It's deliciously wrong and weird.

He doesn't even hesitate to post a lengthy, glowing review, praising the depth of her writing, the insight into "Nikki" that he claims rivals or outdoes even Castle's. He's careful to keep Storytelling-of-Rooks from seeming overly emotionally involved, but hey, it's all anonymous, so what's the harm, really?

Browsing the rest of her fics, he distracts himself with a few of her shorter,  _smuttier_  reads, though he avoids any from the Heat/Rook pairing, vowing to read them the next time he has to be away from the real thing for a night.

His phone vibrates next to him with a new email straight to his Gmail account, the one he uses only for his secret forum identity.

'REPLY: Review for 'Maybe There's Hope.'

Fuck. That quickly? She must be stuck doing something boring at the precinct. He snickers in amusement. Even Kate's not immune to slacking off at work. He feels slightly less guilty about his own workless morning.

**'Storytelling-of-Rooks,**

**Wow! Dead topic revival! A review on that thing? I'm pleased you enjoyed it, old as it is. Flattered that you think my Nikki could possibly rival that of Castle's. It was a cathartic write, my least favorite of mine, actually, but I'm happy you enjoyed it and found it satisfying.**

**Let me know if you see anything else you like. Always nice to hear from an articulate reader whose comments are not limited to text-speak and one-liners.**

**\- Caskat (Call me KH, please; I made this username when I was young and foolish!).'**

Oh, so  _that's_  how it is. His heart skips a beat when he re-reads 'my Nikki.' She's attached to the character, after all, despite her early (though recently much less-frequent) grumblings about the character's name and the trouble it caused her professionally. Cute touch, personalizing the response with her first and middle initials. He oscillates for a while between wanting to close this email and never think of this again, and wanting to play with her a bit. In the end, his curiosity wins out, as it usually does.

("Curiosity killed the cat," Kate often tells him, to which he invariably replies, "People always forget the second part of that adage, darlin': Curiosity killed the cat,  _but satisfaction brought it back._ " At which she rolls her eyes affectionately and he grins like the proverbial cat that ate the canary.)

**'KH,**

**You've got quite a talent in the arena of the more... explicit scenes.'**

Castle pauses, almost deletes his response. It's nervy enough to read and comment on the things his fiancee had written in secret. But hey, she's the one secretly writing fanfiction about what was basically  _his_  poorly-disguised fanfiction about them. Kate's online alter-ego writing fanfiction about her own literary alter-ego, which was written by her fiance as near-fanfiction about the real versions. It's some kind of fanfiction Inception. He feels a migraine coming on just thinking about the genealogy and the levels of meta going on here.

Fuck it, if she wants to write it, he can read it and talk to her about it, behind the safety of an anonymous account.

**'I always find the steamy scenes in the books lacking, but, I guess he can't make it outright porn if he wants it to appeal to a wide audience. Peoples' grandmothers read that. But I bet Nikki and Rook could fill volumes with wall-to-wall porn, couldn't they? All that *chemistry.* No wonder Rook writes romance novels on the side, with all that inspiration in his lap. Literally and figuratively. I wonder if that's a bit of author-insert, especially with that hot cop he's got now, the real Nikki Heat. Or so they say.**

**What's your favorite Castle novel?**

**\- Storytelling-of-Rooks (you can call me Alex, if you like)'**

He laughs at his own private joke, signing part of his real middle name that she full well knows about, wondering if it's too daring, even for what he's already doing. Nah. Alexander is common enough. Besides, refuge in audacity. If she had any suspicions at all (and why would she?), she'll be put off his trail by that alone. She'll never believe he'd be dumb enough to sign part of his own real name or make a direct reference to her, if it was the real him.

Asking her about her favorite novel, well, he has no excuse. She's always given him a diplomatic answer before and damnit, he needs to know.

When she gets home just after 3PM, tired and frustrated after sifting through decades of poorly-maintained casefiles searching for any with promise, he's treated to part two of that kiss he started as the sun rose. Lost in her rough and frantic and slightly angry caramel-flavored greeting and the pull of her hands at his shirt, his denims, his hair, anything she can reach, he pours the pent-up energy from reading her steamy fanfic about his older characters right back into her. It's one more illicit level to the veritable feast of meta his life has quickly become, but damned if that isn't really, really doing it for him right now.

They don't quite make it to the bed.


	2. Escalation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {Prompt: "Castle goes on becketts computer and finds her logged in to his fan site (so he knows her username). Then starts to flirt with her over the internet with her not knowing that he knows." - anonymous on Tumblr via castlefanficpromts.}

He hears nothing more from Caskat the rest of the day and night, but why would he when he's got the real thing? He can't help but stare a little harder, and several times she catches him, gives him a confused half-smile as if to say, 'I don't know what this is about and I can't decide whether it's creepy or cute.'

And of course she doesn't know. High on a secret, he practically bounces on his toes the rest of the day. Further buoyed by the cold file she's brought home, he puts his little online adventure to the back of his mind until morning and dives into the fast-paced Technicolor cocaine-dusted world of Wall Street in the late Eighties.

Their vic could have been the model for Gordon Gekko. Ruthless, enemies on every corner, corrupt; the man was greed personified. Except for the part where Gekko doesn't end up with a gold fountain pen jabbed into his carotid artery, left bleeding in his corner office for his secretary to find, bloated and festering in the hot office upon return from the Fourth of July holiday.

"Is any of this still even there?" Castle asks distractedly, thumbing through dozens if not hundreds of evidence photos cataloguing each item in the office, not to mention the body photographed in all its putrid glory at every angle. "I mean, could we go and recreate this if we needed to? Gonna be hard to find a grizzly-bear skin rug, but…"

"No, it's all there, but it's all changed. Heard this building got renovated a couple of years ago, luxury condos, all of it. I wonder if they ever got the smell out of that place," she comments disgustedly while looking through the medical examiner's report.

"It doesn't come out of cars, that's for sure. Nothing will get decomp smell out of a car. That urban legend about the Corvette being sold to an unsuspecting buyer, only to find out the mysterious smell that he can't get out is from a body that sat there for a month? All completely true."

Her back is to him, sat cross-legged on the living room floor with reports and photos spread around them, but he practically sees her eyes roll all the same.

"Sure it is, Castle. And Jimmy Hoffa is buried under Giants Stadium."

"No, Jimmy Hoffa is in the East River. Or if he's in concrete, it's somewhere remote, somewhere with no people around to smell it. The gasses from a decomposing body would still be able to leak through the concrete, since concrete is extremely porous and full of air bubbles. The smell would have been too horrific for the workers building at the Stadium to not notice, someone would have caught on pretty quickly."

Kate looks over her shoulder at him, raises her eyebrows. The corners of her lips curl up, impressed.

"Well aren't you just full of surprises."

"You have  _no idea_ , De-tec-tive." She really,  _really_  has no idea.

* * *

The quarterly authors and agents meeting with Black Pawn is already dreadful and it hasn't even started. The day-long ordeal at the hands of his publishers, interspersed with promotional pitches from his fellow authors, is doubly depressing when it takes him away from his fiancée on her day off, and a cold case that was just started to get interesting.

Having energy to burn from an unusually quiet day in, he'd been ready to pull an all-nighter when she dozed off right there on the floor and he happily set his perusal of the evidence aside in favor of taking care of her. It's rare that she lets him, her independent streak doesn't allow it often, so he relished the opportunity to ease her racing mind and soothe her tired body. Once he got her tucked safely into bed, brushing a chaste kiss to her temple, he returned to the evidence bomb that had been set off in the living room and carefully preserved the scene. Castle thought using crime scene tape to fence off the area around his couch, chairs and coffee table was a particularly nice touch. Kate had attempted to feign exasperation upon spotting it in the morning, but failed miserably, finally grudgingly complimenting his forethought to preserve the workspace so they didn't have to lose their train of thought, when they could get back to it at a later time.

It's not 15 minutes into Paula's grating harangue about something-or-other that his partner rescues him unknowingly. Glancing around at his fellow authors and the various agents and reps present, no one else seems to be paying much attention either. Castle carefully produces his silenced phone from his pocket and slides it into his lap, instantly checking his secret Gmail account in hopes that Caskat has responded.

She doesn't disappoint.

' **Alex,**

**The things Nikki and Rook could get up to have filled volumes in fanfic already, and they could fill dozens more! The chemistry makes it easy to imagine them just about any which way. Literally and figuratively, as you say. But where would our intrepid author find the time for a secret third career in romance novels? Seems pretty busy playing Jessica Fletcher with the 'hot cop' and continuing the Heat series, plus the Storm fandom seems to have worn him down if he's writing short novels on that again.**

**Speaking of, I see most of your posted stories are from the Strike/Storm fandom. I have to confess I don't read that any more, but I'll take a chance and try it. For old time's sake.**

**My favorite book? This is going to sound silly, but it's "Flowers For Your Grave." Call it a sentimental attachment, but it accidentally led to some pretty great things happening to me, in a time when I didn't have a lot to look forward to.**

**How about yours? One of the Storm series, or something less predictable?**

**Until later,  
KH'**

His heart beats erratically in his chest at her unwitting confession, and he can't control the smile that's making his whole face ache. If anyone else in the room had a pulse, they'd surely notice how he's grinning like a loon and become too curious about what could possibly be so fascinating at one of these torture sessions.

That little minx! She's given him – the real him – a dozen different answers to that question. Why not just the truth?

Oh. His ego. Right. Should probably keep a check on that.

Wait a minute – Jessica Fletcher?

"I am  _not_  Jessica Fletcher!" he mutters indignantly, momentarily forgetting where he is. Not good. Very not good. The heads of his zonked-out peers all swivel and creak towards him, latching onto his seemingly random outburst with tragically hopeful expressions, like it's the most interesting thing they've heard all day. It probably is.

"Er… sorry. I was, thinking, about… Murder She Wrote, and what a good series it was, and how consulting… helps the creative process… writing… you know, I'm just going to shut up now. Sorry to interrupt, please continue."

Paula shoots him a death glare, but she likes hearing herself talk (she's the only one who does) too much to let his interruption derail her pitch. Something about publicity parties involving multiple authors to create a 'friendly rivalry.' More like gossip-column-friendly rivalry. He wants no part of it. The collective disappointment at the squandered potential for entertainment fades quickly back into bored inattention and Castle busies himself in happier matters. He taps out his response to Kate's alter-ego, pausing every now and then to look around and nod like he knows what's going on outside his phone.

' **KH,**

***Any* which way? Care to elaborate? ;)**

**I haven't written any fanfic in a while, but the Rook/Nikki (Rooki? Nookie? What are they calling it these days?) pairing is calling my name and I think I have a few drabbles saved. I'll post them later, if you can handle poorly-edited smut.**

**Don't be hatin' on the Storm fandom. They just want their hero back! Far be it from the author to deny them that. Though, it's been a while, and in retrospect, Clara Strike *is* a pretty flat character, and Derrick is a bit boring, compared to Nikki and Rook.**

**My favorite is Heat Rises.**

**Until later,**

**Alex'**

He scans the PM for any outright lies. Even anonymously, through this mostly-harmless little adventure, he can't stand to lie to her. Finding none, he sends it off and wiles away the hours waiting for a response. She must be busy. Or out. Oooh, if she's tracking down a lead on that Wall Street banker-bloater case without him…

The meetings drag on indefinitely, hours of boring droning and proposals followed by a parade of fake smiles and phony smalltalk, made only worse by horrible appetizers (why did he not listen when Kate told him to pack lunch?) and pulsing music. It's the kind of thing he used to be great at before he started hanging around the 12th. Whether it's a change borne of having genuine friends now, or the lowered ability to tolerate other peoples' stupid bullshit that's crept up on him over the course of 5 years interviewing hundreds of suspects and witnesses, all with an agenda to serve, or a combination of both, he's not sure. All he knows is that what he thrived on years ago has become barely tolerable and utterly emotionally draining in more recent times. All morning his jaw hurt from containing his smile at her unwitting confession about her favorite book, and why. Now it simply hurts from faking his way through the event.

By the time it lets out close to 6PM, his earlier good mood is gone, all but a distant memory. Not even the thought of going home to Kate can lift his spirits as he hauls himself out of the cab, into the appropriately-moody pouring rain. He sighs. It's over. He won't have to deal with most of those people for another few months, until the next regularly-scheduled 10-hour test of his usual good nature rolls around.

Trudging into the apartment, he sees the lights on and smells something cooking. Someone must be home. Correction – he smells something  _burning_ and the acrid smell of evaporating alcohol _._  So, Mother must be home.

"Richard, darling!"

Aaaand there she is. His mother emerges from behind the kitchen island looking unusually disheveled, her orange hair askew and her face streaked with flour, with what looks like the last pan she hasn't dirtied already in hand. "You're home! I was just showing Katherine my famous chicken piccata! Speaking o—" she stops mid-syllable, obviously noting his expression on delay.

"Uh-oh. Bad meeting, Richard?" her voice softens marginally; the usual loud, airy tone traded for a kinder and gentler one. Without even waiting to hear his response, she passes him the bottle of white wine she'd been using in the… well, he wouldn't insult chefs by calling it a  _sauce_. A liquid-like, possibly-edible topping, perhaps. He takes a long swig of it before answering.

"Hell. I swear if I shake one more slimy, sweaty hand…"

"Oh, well, it's over now! You and Katherine both have the day off tomorrow, yes?"

Castle growls irritably, shaking his head.

"She's on call.  _If_  no one gets murdered, she'll have the day off, but she actually found a really cool cold case. Heh. Cool-cold-case. An alliteration and a pun!"

Martha rolls her eyes in a remarkably Beckett-ish way, the same way Alexis picked up after her very first time meeting their favorite detective. Back when she was arresting him, come to think of it. His spirits lift slightly out of the doldrums at the thought. The three women in his life may not appreciate his puns, but at least they keep him on his toes. Never boring.

As if on cue, Kate bounds into the kitchen from downstairs, Alexis on her heels. Now that wasn't something he saw often. True, the two had repaired their relationship in the past year or so, after it had somehow deteriorated without his conscious knowledge in the year after the shooting. But he rarely saw them spend time together without him.

"Hi dad!" Alexis chirps from the stairs before darting back to her room to fetch something.

"Hey," says Kate warmly as she descends the last stair, a knowing expression on her face. She reaches for him, crossing her wrists around the back of his neck and peppering his cheek and the corners of his mouth with kisses, and he feels the stress and irritation of the day slip away. Enclosing her in his own arms – though still mindful of their audience – and burying his nose into her soft chestnut waves, he inhales deeply, her comforting scent blocking out everything else for the moment and making his day a little more okay.

"Hey," he returns quietly when they pull apart. As if on cue, Alexis emerges at the top of the stairs, her hair piled messily on top of her head and her jeans and t-shirt of a moment ago replaced with a pale turquoise eyelet dress.

"You like?" she squeaks. Clearly she does, and while he's no objective judge, he thinks she looks perfect. Then again, she'd look perfect in a burlap sack, if she asked him.

"It's beautiful, pumpkin," Castle says confidently, though she rolls her eyes at the childish nickname. Women in this family and eyerolling…

"It's for your wedding?" Alexis states in her best duh-dad voice, the one she had mastered by age three. Oh. OH. "I dragged Kate away from the crime scene in the living room – and ew, those pictures, never saw a bloater like that when I was with Lanie at the morgue. Kate helped me pick it out!"

So that's where Kate's been all day. He approves. If Alexis had gone with Martha… he didn't want to think what kind of horrifying ensemble she might be convinced into, not wanting to hurt her gram's feelings. As quickly as she appeared, Alexis pops back into her room to change out of her dress, emerging moments later in her street clothes.

 _How do women even do that?_  he wonders. It takes them forever to get ready in the morning, and yet changing an entire outfit happens so quickly it practically defies the laws of physics.

'Thank you,' he mouths to his fiancée, who appears to be torn between trying not to giggle at the obviously shared thought about the wedding outfit disaster she may have prevented, and growing worry over the small fire that has started on the stove top.

Kate and Alexis manage to salvage some of the chicken and produce a passable salad, and Martha proclaims it a success. Undoubtedly she will reference this glowing example of  _her_  cooking next time he dares challenge another concoction. The four settle down for a rare meal together, uninterrupted by murder or mayhem of any sort.

"So, Richard," Martha breezes, "how goes the publishing business? They accepted your latest Heat novel, I trust?"

"Less interesting than a tank of sea monkeys," he sighs, thinking that the comparison might be an insult to his only childhood pet, "but yes, they're very happy with the new book, though now that I have that turned in, Gina's going to start hounding me for something Storm-flavored."

Oh, that got Kate's attention. He watches with barely-repressed glee as she practically chokes on a tomato. Alexis plays right into his new favorite game without knowing it.

"Why  _did_  you give her Storm back, anyway? I thought you were tired of him." the redhead inquires. "They're all so short too."

Kate is watching with rapt, guarded attention, attempting to look only casually interested. He addresses Alexis as if he has noticed nothing at all unusual about her reaction to the Storm series being so casually mentioned.

"Eh," he dismisses, electing to tell her the truth, "I actually wrote all those a few years ago, when Nikki wasn't cooperating. They were all basically sitting on my hard drive, and when she started bothering me about reviving Storm following the comic's success, I didn't think I had anything to lose by letting them out one by one. Not my best work by a longshot, but, they fill in the year-long gaps between the Heat releases. Now I let her bug me and get really upset about it, then toss out a complete, mostly-edited draft just when she's ready to snap. Makes her happy, and I don't have to do much, besides edit."

"How many of them do you have?" Kate blurts out, too curious to stay quiet despite how on-edge this line of conversation has her, if he knows her subtle tells as well as he thinks he does.

"Let's see, three released, I've got…" he pauses, as if he needs to think about it, "four more before I'm out of steaks to throw the attack dog."

"Hmm," Kate nods, and as if by divine intervention, Alexis comes to her rescue, effectively ending playtime for him. Probably for the best, he rationalizes; he doesn't want to give away too much, make her too suspicious.

"Kate! Tell him about the epic Bridezilla meltdown we saw at that shop on 16th..."

Their chatter quickly turns back to their day out and he listens casually, enough to nod in all the right places and laugh as they recount the part where Kate threatened to arrest a woman rampaging through the bridal section of a boutique. Mentally, he's cackling to himself, still ridiculously pleased with the fortuitous conversation about Storm. While his fiancée relaxes with the turn in conversation, he plots, figuring out how he's going to really make her squirm.


	3. Satisfaction

Opportunity presents itself at last a long few weeks later, when Kate leaves him to his own devices for a girls' night at Lanie's. She shied away from his correspondence for days after that well-placed conversation about Storm at dinner, devolving into only short, detail-free responses, but eventually, she seems to grow complacent again. He notices she scarcely mentions Storm again in her correspondence with 'Alex,' sticking instead to trading ideas about steamy Heat fiction and occasionally chatting about older novels.

He particularly likes her analysis of Alexandra Jones from one of his personal favorites,  _Kissed and Killed._  It's an unusual interpretation, one he never intended while writing it, but she convinces him and he finds himself wishing it were 18 years ago again, and he could re-develop Jones with Kate's voice in his head, wind up with a much darker and morally-ambiguous, but far richer character.

Their discussion has turned more intense, though still strictly impersonal. He tried flirting with her. It wasn't exactly intentional, more a by-product of their natural way of interacting with each other, carried over into the digital world without his conscious acknowledgement. On her part, Caskat(e) simply ignored it and only ever responded to book or writing-related chitchat. At first it stings, that she doesn't respond to him that way, but then he remembers that it's basically like trying to lead her to temptation, which he knows she'd never accept, and he feels like a real tool. Their chat cools off for days afterward as he kicks himself, though eventually they return to comfort.

So he keeps the conversation light, and she says nothing on the topic at all.

The real Kate shows no sign of having figured out his secret identity, though he does enjoy innocently bringing up his novels and bouncing plot ideas off of her. He goes for ones too unfamiliar from those they talk about to arouse suspicion, but not far enough outside the realm of possibility, either; pushing her just far enough to fluster her, not far enough to show his hand.

Normally, a night without Kate bums him out if he has no equivalent plans with the redheads or Ryan or Esposito, and he spends the better part of it wondering how he entertained himself before her. Not tonight. Tonight, he's taking his phone to bed and reading all of her Rookie (they'd finally settled that debate) smutfic. Whatever happened… happened. If she could pander to her guilty pleasures writing that stuff, he could pander to his in reading it. Turnabout is, after all, fair play.

And possibly getting off on it.

Okay. Definitely getting off on it.

He and Kate have indulged each others' many fantasies since the first night, their mutual adventurous streaks setting up immediate precedence when she showed him her ice cube trick. But the sheer voyeuristic thrill of reading about her fantasies, channeled into their fictional counterparts? He's got to get in on that. And now he finally has the time and privacy to do it.

Castle takes a quick, cool shower. After a brief distraction in the form of a mundane gang-related shooting, solved relatively quickly by multiple witness identification, they're back to their new favorite cold case. Beckett and Esposito hung back for the morning to raid the archives for missed or long-lost evidence. He spent the day in the library with Ryan, doing old school police work. The investigation is heating up, and, absent a body or a crime scene to return to, they hit the newspaper archives from 1988 in search of any and all articles pertaining to the life and untimely death of world-class conman, coke fiend, and Wall Street folk hero/villain (depending on who you ask), Kenny Keaton.

He's desperate to find anything that will provide them a new direction, a new suspect, a fresh lead.

Well, considering the state of the body and the age of the case itself,  _fresh_  probably isn't an adjective he wants to apply to anything in association with this case. Including himself, at the moment. Who'd have thought that much dust and human filth could live in a library, or that every bit of it would stick to him at the end of a day spent browsing twenty-five year old papers?

Scrubbing away at the layers of grime concentrated particularly thickly around his hands and nails, then giving his hair a quick wash, he emerges clean enough to feel human again. Slipping on a pair of blue silk boxers, he decides it's not worth bothering with clothes; he knows where they'll end up. He throws a robe around his shoulders instead, just to keep the chill off.

Firing up his phone and slipping into the cool, dark linens of his bed, he props himself against the headboard and scrolls through Caskat(e)'s profile, finding her first Rookie one-shot. Another shudder of right-wrongness runs through him, but he banishes it violently before diving into the vat of simmering guilty pleasure.

* * *

He can't get over it.  _His_  Kate wrote…  _that._  He's well-acquainted with her penchant for dirty talk, but it's another thing entirely to read five pages of it straight. He's outsourcing his sex scenes to her from now on, if he survives the reveal he knows is inevitable.

Typing a review off, he almost sends it.

 _Hmm,_  he thinks. She might get suspicious if his reviews and PMs only come when they're apart.  _Heh heh heh,_  thank you, queue feature. He sets his review to send at 8:30 the next morning, just after he's set to meet her at the precinct.

Castle moves onto the next of half a dozen more, eager to read them all before his time alone is up. He selects a recent one this time, one written, if his memory serves him, during her brief stint in D.C. In fact, all of her more recent ones – since they've been together, anyway – were written in those short weeks. He grins, feeling more than a little prideful at the frustration his physical absence obviously caused her.

 _Double Edged_  lacks much in the way of a description, but the number of reviews it has shows promise, and he clicks on it eagerly, expecting something hot. He's wholly unprepared for what he finds.

_Your blackened pupils watch me intensely as I show you the star attraction of the night and grin fatally down at your helpless form beneath me._

_The combat knife you brought me back from your adventure in embedded reporting in Syria feels heavy with responsibility and meaning in my hand, a good kind of weight, comforting in its sturdiness. Steel. Strong. Smooth. Shiny. You eye it warily, only a hint of your sylvan green irises rimming your blown-out pupils. I crawl up your straining body, straddle your hips and lean over, allowing you full view of my breasts._

_I can't help but laugh when your body jerks under me and your sharp, white teeth bare your fury. Your wrists wrench in their confines, so viciously it's bound to leave a mark for me to soothe in the morning, and for Roach to carefully avoid looking at. It's all so very you, Rook; always needing to touch, the same way that gets you in trouble at crime scenes when you impulsively reach out to poke and prod at anything that interests you._

_Your usual steady breathing shallows out and your attention is singular as I carefully drag the edge of the heavy blade across the back of your forearm, fascinated and disquieted by the way it clears the area of its sparse, dark hair so effortlessly, closer than a demon barber's deadly razor. This has become a habit for you; testing your knives' edges on your arm. The patches of hairlessness on only your left arm speak to the size and variety of your collection in a secret language, one you think only you can read. But this one is_ _**mine** _ _. Of all the gifts you've brought me in apology, joy, celebration, sorrow, these growing years of ours, this is my favorite, and you know it. And that is all the difference._

_I slip the dark green silk tie off from around my neck, taking my time to reassure you and myself with my lips as I secure the tie around the back of your head, blocking out your vision._

Castle groans aloud; he's completely disturbed and aroused all at once, and shamefully, the former feeds the latter. In his mind, like always when he reads these scenes, Rook and Nikki become him and Kate. He sees Nikki's auburn hair turn to her chestnut, hears Kate's voice instead of whatever he originally imagined for Nikki, sees Kate's sacred scarred chest hovering above him rather than Nikki's unblemished one.

The unusual first-person narrative makes it that much better-worse-dirtier, as if he's living in her fantasy through Rook and Nikki. He's fantasized about knifeplay so many times, but it was one of those things… with the way her mother was killed, he's never even entertained the idea of bringing it up. Never thought she'd be into it, even in the fictional realm.

_"Give me your word, Jamie," I demand gently, allowing my lips the rare use of the nickname I never can bring myself to speak outside the protected darkness of our encounters. "What's your word?"_

_Your voice shakes, with anticipation, I think, as much as lingering fear. "Oranges."_

_I still remember, when you say it, your safeword. It brings me right back to the first time I put handcuffs on you. You liked it too much. I should have known you were trouble, walked away then and there. But then, you'd have never let that be end to our adventure, would you?_

_"Good," I say, barely above a whisper, "Oranges, and we stop."_

Fuck, it's like she's not even trying to keep it in the realm of fiction any more. Apples and oranges? The first time she cuffed him? That's  _them._  Not Nikki and Rook. Christ, would she actually get off on this idea, if they were to try it themselves? He's not sure. One more layer of the wall between reality and fiction falls away.

_Switching out my sharpened knife for a dull-edged one of similar shape and size, I press the cool flat of the blade to your stubbled, devilishly ill-shaven face, such a departure from the polished look you show your public these days. I slide it over your edges and your angles, the curve of your nose, the ridge of your adam's apple. I rotate the dull tip lightly into the valley created by your collarbone, twirling the blade by its handle. You gasp, hold your breath, gasp again; a cycle to heighten the fear and the pleasure coursing through you._

_My mouth numbs out and my head buzzes with pleasant intoxication, from no wine or spirit, but instead from the words spilling from your lips, formless and senseless. Here, you're so ineloquent, so different from your usual snap and completely absent the effortless, empty charm you use on others. I'm the only one who hears you undone, watches you come undone._

Castle finds his own breathing labored, as if he were participating, shocked that the scene is affecting him so much, so fast. He reads on, pages and pages of slow buildup, sweet torture, the exhilarating mix of threat and trust, violence and sex, all driving him closer and closer.

His only consolation for his downright adolescent performance is that he manages to outlast Rook.

* * *

Writing her another glowing review for  _Double Edged_ , he queues it up for mid-day on Monday.

' **KH,**

**An inspired departure from your usual fare, and what a sinful delight it was. It's almost as if this piece were written from life, not mere imagination.**

**The details interspersed of Rook and Nikki's history and life together give it such a texture of reality, and it's rare that I like a first-person narrative. Usually it breaks a short story, becomes too much author-insert if you ask me. Here, it makes it.**

**Cheers,**

**Alex'**

It's too daring, but fuck it. He's in too deep already, what's the harm in digging a little deeper?

If he were a betting man, he'd say she'll get it when they take lunch together, if they're not out chasing down a lead on Monday. Good. It will give him a chance to gauge her reaction in real time, let him see just how much this little charade is affecting her.

Pausing, he wonders again whether or not he should just end the game. Stop contact altogether and hope she forgets? Tell her outright? He's planned from the first day to tell her eventually, or just leak hints so subtly to her that she figures it out on her own. It'll earn him a night on the couch at least, he suspects, but damned if the insight into her – emotionally, literarily, sexually – hasn't been worth it all.

Eventually, he elects to wait, at least one more day. Just see what her response to his commentary on  _Double Edged_  is.

His earlier plans to spend the night reading all the rest of her material are quickly scrapped. He doesn't want any other story in his head tonight, while he lies in bed missing her, wonders what she's doing over at Lanie's. He wants Nikki-Kate and Rook-Castle playing through his mind and teasing on the edge of his fitful dreams, and until he's ready for bed, he's abandoning the realm of fiction in favor of diving headfirst into research on the best current combat knives.

She knows he owns a few from his days researching for Storm, he's shown them to her once. The strange glint in her eye when he did makes more sense in retrospect.

The night he showed her was the night after their old friend Jerry had taken a swim in the river, back when she was still convinced he was being paranoid about the Triple Killer's ability to survive anything. He remembers well her insistence that his refusal to believe he was dead until he saw a body was overkill and ridiculous, and he definitely remembers how she'd visibly tensed when he showed her his hidden collection of weapons acquired over years of research for his books. Some were functional, some purely decorative. He'd produced a simple utility knife and carried it for weeks after the encounter with Tyson, but eventually grew complacent enough to return it to its place. He assumed that was the end of it for both of them, on the knife issue. Out of sight, out of mind. Or not.

Now, though… he wonders if that critically assessing look she gave his collection was not just about being unsettled by it. He wonders if the way she would stare at his coat as if trying to look directly into his breast pocket for weeks afterward was not just about her insistence that he's paranoid when it comes to anything 3XK-flavored.

Half-baked ideas on how to present her with a gift – eventually, when all this is said and done – gallop through his head and he loses himself in the flow of research and plot once again.

* * *

Her reaction to his alter-ego's correspondence does not disappoint. True to his prediction, they're enjoying a casual lunch at a seafood dive in Red Hook two days later, a break between interviewing the old salts who worked the original case, when she excuses herself to 'check in on that lab she's having Lanie run.'

Riiiight. Like that's a private conversation. Like that's why she emerges from the restroom five minutes later, eyes wide and cheeks slightly reddened. For a moment, the way she looks at him, he's positive she  _knows_ , but he chalks it up to paranoia and sets about throwing her off.

"Any word yet on the analysis of our pal Kenny's hair?" he asks breezily, in between bites of his calamari.

"Er… no, no. Not yet," Kate bites out, flustered. Good.

"That's a shame. If we could prove he'd been clean prior to his death, that gives us supporting evidence of long-term changes in his behavior."

"It's a longshot, Castle," she says, slipping gratefully back into case-talk.

It looks like Kenny Keaton had been trying to turn over a new leaf, just prior to his death. Unfortunately, he had more enemies as a good guy than he did as a bad guy. All of his former co-conspirators in the massive Ponzi-scheme he was running had motive, if he was about to turn himself in and expose the scam.

The financials that he and Ryan had managed to dig up showed a sudden reversal of spending habits in April of 1988, just shy of three months prior to the gruesome murder. Massive donations to charities, anonymous cheques cut to individuals. Castle suspects he was trying to pay back the victims of his scam, making sure that justice was served before the law took over. Once he turned himself in, the IRS would seize his assets and all those of his co-conspirators, and the victims would never see a dime.

"Any cold case is a longshot, right?" he asks, and she nods gravely. It's a depressing reality that past the first few months of a fresh investigation, cases rarely get solved. "So, it's still better than where it was when we started."

Kate smiles affectionately, a softness to it that she reserves for him in the rare moments that his earnest good nature shows through, untainted by sarcasm or humor or innuendo.

"Guess you're right. Even if we don't find the killer, maybe we can tell the real story, give the guy his due. Whatever he did wrong, he was trying to make it right. That counts."


	4. Satisfaction

"No, no, you don't understand. I ordered that knife a week ago and chose express delivery."

Castle is frustrated, and more than a little apprehensive. He's spent the last twenty-two minutes on the phone, first with Amazon, then with the manufacturer of the top-of-the-line military knife he ordered.

"I'm sorry, sir; our records show that it was delivered USPS on Thursday."

He growls and then apologizes exhaustedly to the service rep. It's not their fault that UPS lost his package, or perhaps someone stole it from the collections lobby in the building.

Hanging up the phone, he considers his options for the rest of the day. He begged off work (well, Beckett's work, he forgets sometimes that it's not actually his job too) at noon to deal with this minor calamity, to give himself plenty of time to pick the almost-certainly-ill-advised present up at the post office if found and hide all evidence before she arrives home.

He could relax. Catch up on outlining the next Heat novel – oh, he has  _plenty_  of ideas for that now, with Caskat(e)'s frequent (if unconscious) inspiration from their frequent discussions of what direction Castle might take the next book.

But then he'll be stuck home. All alone. On an unseasonably freezing spring day. Without Beckett. Even his mother and daughter have abandoned him, took off early yesterday evening for jump on a three-day-weekend retreat to the Hamptons.

No, there will be no relaxing. He can't really enjoy it anyway, even if he tries. Not with this Keaton mystery to solve. Lanie's hair analysis showed a significant reversal of physical strain, indicating a probable cessation of drug use and a reversal of lifestyle in the months prior to his their victim's murder. It doesn't prove anything, but it's evidence of pattern and it backs up the financials.

They're tantalizingly close, their suspect pool narrowed down to a few associates. All of whom have since been to prison, luckily for the team. Their prints and DNA are all on file now, and could prove useful if they ever manage to find the items taken from the office that have been lost to time and clutter in evidence.

It turns out that whoever killed Kenny Keaton to silence him went to a whole lot of trouble for nothing; the IRS and Major Crimes had already been onto the scheme and were closing in at the time of the murder. Six co-conspirators were arrested and charged in December of 1988 in connection with the Ponzi-scheme that robbed individuals and charities of an estimated $600 million in just a few short years.

Two viable suspects emerged, both co-conspirators with no alibi for the time of the murder. He and Ryan were dispatched early that morning to interview the ex-cons in Jersey. Nothing panned out; one had early-onset Alzheimer's and thought it  _was_  1988, but knew nothing about a murder. Even if he did it, the secret's been lost to time. The other tolerated a few questions before telling them quite politely to go fuck themselves when an over-eager Ryan jumped the gun and accused him of murdering Keaton.

Beckett left just as he and Ryan had returned to the precinct, gone with Esposito to haul in the former Mrs. Keaton, see if they can't jog her memory for detail. There's no way he's missing out on that. He can catch the interrogation if he heads to the precinct quickly. Mind made up, Castle hurries back, the lost package all but forgotten.

* * *

"Mrs. Keaton," Beckett says evenly, her tone commanding respect from Keaton's widow, "or do you prefer to be called Mrs. Previtt now? Mrs. Oliver?"

The woman's unnaturally tight face purses into an elongated shape that reminds Castle of a Komodo dragon, and he mentally pictures the long ropes of venomous drool to complete the look. It's a disturbingly short leap that requires little imagination.

"It's Mrs. Wong, actually," she snaps haughtily, working-class Long Island oozing from every note. "But you a'ready know that, don't you? I told the detectives in 1988 and I'm gonna to tell you the same thing now: Kenny was a basta'd and if somebody else hadn't'a killed him, I would'a eventually. But I didn' do it, though I'd like to send flowers to whoev'a did, so send me a postca'd when you catch him."

"That's nice, Mrs. Wong," Beckett clips, "but we're not questioning you as a suspect. We just have this quota to fill, so we're working through some cold cases. We pulled up your late husband's case this morning and just figured we'd touch base, see if there was anything you remember now that might make more sense after all these years than it did back then."

Now this is an interesting tactic. Beckett obviously has found reason to be suspicious in his brief absence, if she's already leading the woman off their trail. Castle jumps in.

Entering interrogation and catching his fiancée's mildly surprised expression, he mouths, 'bored already,' and seeing her approving nod, he takes a seat next to her, opposite Mrs. Keaton-Previtt-Oliver-Wong.

"Mrs. Wong, this is my partner Mr. Castle," Kate introduces. Mrs. Wong's face – what still moves of it – lights up like Christmas morning.

"I know you!"  _not this again_ , Castle groans internally, "You're the authoa!"

He ignores her attempt to steer the conversation away from herself, though he's briefly impressed by her identification of him. He wouldn't have pegged her as ever having voluntarily opened a book.

"I consult for the NYPD," he recites robotically for what must be the hundredth time, gritting his teeth before moving straight into interrogation mode.

"You were on the eligible bachelors list a few yeah's ago, weren't you?"

Ah. It appears his initial, if uncharitable assessment that she wasn't much of a reader was correct after all. His faith in his reader base is restored. Moreso, when he looks over at his partner, his favorite not-deranged fangirl.

"Mrs. Wong," Castle begins, shooting Beckett a 'follow my lead' glance and hoping she'll go with it, "we know you were in Atlantic City the day your late husband was killed. When was the last time you saw him?"

Mrs. Wong glances suspiciously between them, as if searching their faces for the correct answer.

"The day before he died, Friday," she finally answers, "he came back from a meeting in Denver early. I saw him and told him to get his shit outta my house. I didn't hear from him again, but we a'gued, so I figured, we were through. I took the weekend before the Fourth off and went to Atlantic City, next thing I know I come home and there's cops all ova my house sayin' they's been looking for me for days, and Kenny's dead."

Seeing no resistance from Beckett, Castle presses.

"Can you tell us anything about his behavior, right before you left? Was he perhaps doing more drugs than usual, making reckless decisions, getting in trouble for belligerence at work? We found a couple of old disturbance reports from his office. Were there any more of those types of incidents that perhaps didn't get reported to the police?"

It's an inspired improvisation. For his laundry list of crimes, Keaton's record was entirely free of violent or confrontational offenses. From the old associates they've been able to track down, and from the statements given to the first round of investigators back in 1988, he was addicted to personal risk, but not prone to imposing risk or harm onto others.

Castle waits patiently for her reaction, hoping he's given her a rope to hang herself with, or at least a ladder on which she can to climb to the gallows. Kate glances over at him, impressed.

"Yeah," Mrs. Wong croaks after a moment, looking like she's been thrown a life ring, as if she can't believe her good luck. Jackpot.

"Kenny had a real problem wit coke, an' a temper too. You know he almost put me in the hospital right before he bit the big one? He was gonna kill me one day, if I didn't do him first!"

His partner lights up.

"If you didn't 'do him' first?" she states neutrally.

"Not like that," the lizard-woman backpedals, "I was gonna kick him out, divo'ce him, take him for all he got, y'know, for pain and sufferin'! But the gangs got him first, his coke suppliers or one of his coke buddies. He was outta control!" her voice climbs higher and higher with every syllable, "Doin' lines offa my kitchen table, desks, even offa the urinal! It was awful, I lived in constant fea', I tell ya!"

It's not often that something truly surprises him, but he's caught entirely off guard when Mrs. Wong erupts into large, loud sobs that go on forever. Hiding her lack of genuine tears, she drops her entire face into her tastelessly bejeweled hands.

 _Amateur_ , thinks Castle.  _Mother taught me how to cry on cue before I was even in Kindergarten._

Five years earlier, Castle would have burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity of her performance, but his hard-won self-control miraculously holds. Though possibly only because Beckett's 4-inch heel is pressing brutally into the top of his foot to keep him quiet. Chancing a look at his partner, he sees the tell-tale quivering beginning at one corner of her mouth and spreading down into her chin that tells him he's hardly alone in his utter disbelief at the theatrics.

"Mrs. Wong, get a hold of yourself!" Beckett snaps forcefully once she regains her poker face, changing tactics. The sniveling ceases immediately, and her garish makeup hasn't even got a smudge, for all the crying she's been pretending to do.

"Now, I need you to tell me," she says in a measured tone, "anything you remember about the days and weeks before your husband was killed."

The lizard-woman talks in circles, contradicting her statements from the original report wildly. Castle leaves the rest of the interrogation to Beckett and instead elects to jot down her statements, trying to make some kind of sense of them and keep track of the confounding number of contradictions she's been caught in so far. Beckett excuses herself well over an hour into the interview under the guise of getting a cup of coffee. In reality, she seems to be finding it harder and harder to not either laugh at the staggering idiocy of it all, or to not explode in sheer frustration since for all the lies they've cornered her into, she still has an alibi. Castle follows her out.

"She did it! She's the killer!" he blurts out as they emerge from the interrogation room, unable to contain the thought any longer. "She definitely did it."

"Yup," Beckett agrees crisply and sighs in exasperation. "Now how do we prove it? She's not going to confess outright, she's just telling us anything that she can to try to throw us off."

"Or she's already preparing an insanity defense." Beckett snorts. Insanity wouldn't be a stretch, actually.

"Well, all records put her in Atlantic City at the time of the murder. How do we break a 25-year-old alibi?"

* * *

Arriving home at a shockingly decent hour to an empty loft, Castle sets the oven and begins to prepare his workspace to cook while Beckett disappears to their bedroom to shrug out of her work clothes.

He's meticulously sawing the marrow bones in half lengthwise when she emerges, hair let loose in soft curls and dressed for bed already… in one of his shirts. And nothing else.

_Mercy._

"What's for dinner?" she asks coyly, as if she doesn't know where all the blood in his body has rushed. His mouth runs dry. Less at the prospect of the actual meal, more at the visual feast she's lain before him, her bare legs and that shirt unbuttoned just far enough to let him glimpse the raised, faded circle that punctuates her chest.

"Marrow," he mutters distractedly. It's a meal she was apprehensive about at first. Wouldn't even try it, in fact, the first time he offered it to her. Good old fashioned peer pressure finally convinced her when he made it for Ryan, Jenny, Espo and Lanie prior to a poker night. Now it's among her favorites, and he reserves its preparation for when they've had a particularly grueling day. Something about the nutritional density, the sensuous taste, and the bold carnivorous appeal of the dish seems to satisfy her like nothing else.

"Hmmm," she hums appreciatively. "Can I help?"

"You can go slice that baguette and throw the sundried tomatoes in the oven to warm them up, if you want."

Seasoning the raw marrow with a pinch kosher salt and fresh pepper, he slides the skillet into the oven and turns around to find her hovering behind him. Staring, with this strange rapacious look in her eyes that he's scarcely seen.

"'Bout twenty minutes," he gulps, hoping that's the right answer. Just like that, the moment suspends and the look dims when she returns to her task. He mentally files it away, a thought to be explored or stoked out of her. Later.

They migrate to the counter while their dinner simmers in the oven and bounce ideas off each other. How to break the black widow. How she could have done it when she had a seemingly rock-solid alibi.

"Hitman?" he tosses out.

"Mm, no. A hitman doesn't use a pen to kill someone. A hitman uses a gun or runs you down with a car or puts a knife in a vital organ," she reasons, and it surprises him that the latter mention no longer chokes her voice or produces any noticeable distress. Then again... that story...

"A pen is close, personal. You don't get close enough to someone to jab a pen in their neck if they're afraid of you..."

Castle finishes, "and you don't use a pen to kill someone if it's not personal. Weapon of opportunity and rage. So, no hitman."

Kate snarls with aggravation.

"How did she do it?" she demands to no one in particular. "Unless she's an actress to rival Streep, there's no way she's smart enough to have gotten away with it on purpose. The original investigators missed something, or we've missed something."

 _On purpose_. That triggers his mind, synapses firing off all at once. Something almost comes together, swims in the corners of his brain. He almost has it... and his timer sounds. It's gone.

"Damn it!" he erupts childishly. She shoots him a sympathetic glance, no explanation required, as if she were almost there too.

They dine without discussing the case and lapse into comfortable silence, side by side at the counter. He scrapes some of the marrow from the bone and smears it across the toast, garnishing it with this and that and passing it over to her before preparing his own. Her foot wraps around his calf and strokes gently. The looks, the shirt, the touches – she's gradually winding him up for what's sure to be an interesting night. She finishes her meal first and vanishes upstairs for reasons unknown with only a parting pat to his cheek.

* * *

Castle's retired to his study when she reappears, a small, wooden box in her hands. A chill runs through his whole body. He's never seen it before, but he knows exactly what it is. The look in her eyes says she does too.

"Kate –" he starts, not sure what explanation he can offer. Not sure he even has one. It started as a silly curiosity but he's sure he's taken it too far, even without bringing her secret kink into it.

"I know," she stops him. She's… not angry? Her mouth is curled into a faint smirk, her eyes flash with challenge and interest and amusement. Her posture, though, it's downright predatory. Shoulders rolling slightly as she stalks toward his desk, she leans forward and slides the box over to his nervous hands.

"Open it," she says simply.

He knows he's in no position to refuse or stall. On autopilot, he pulls the box open to reveal a military knife.

His mouth, unfortunately, also runs on autopilot.

"You know it's a federal crime to open someone else's mail," he quips breathlessly.

Her tinkling laugh is a simultaneous balm and accelerant to his firing nerves.

"What are you going to do, Castle?  _Call the cops?_ " Kate sing-songs deviously, every bit the playful predator.

"Er…" Castle stammers, "no, no, I'm good. Not something I particularly want to explain to Ryan and Esposito."

"Explain it to me, then," she asks, perching on his desk and swinging her legs around to rest her feet in his lap.

Taking a deep breath, he decides to start from the beginning. He tells her about the accidental discovery, how he just wanted to play with her originally, how he continued the charade because he liked getting to know her in a different medium, liked the insight it gave him.

"When did you know?" he asks, thinking at last he's safe with asking a question of his own, since she hasn't killed him yet.

Kate wrings her hands and stares out the window distractedly, fiddles with the cup of pens on his shiny wooden desk.  _Oh?_  he thinks.  _Secrets of your own, Kate?_

"The username should have been my first clue, but it wasn't. About a week in, I got suspicious. You described Derrick Storm as "boring" in one of your messages. You're the only one who'd call him that."

She takes a deep breath.

"But you know what made me absolutely sure, Castle?"

Castle shakes his head no, entranced by her teasing, seductive voice like spice and honey.

"What made me really, really, absolutely sure…?" - the sweet siren act is momentarily replaced by her blunt Beckett snap and spark - "was that I've got seniority privileges on the forum. I looked up the I.P. addresses that 'Storytelling-of-Rooks' was being accessed by. Beaming straight from home."

And he can't do anything but gape like a stranded fish, opening his mouth and closing it with a click over and over. Her warmer expression returns, and she needles him mockingly.

"Wasn't the idiom, 'hoist by one's own petard' coined by Shakespeare, Castle?"

"Yes, it was-" but he never gets to explain to her that it was indeed Shakespeare, and another wonderful idiom from  _Hamlet_ , which was always his favorite play, and - the words never find their way into life when she crushes her lips to his.

He feels her pour the whole month of this stupid game into him, her tongue twining with his own, letting him taste her. It's not cruel or punishing. Not angry. Not betrayed. He might even avoid that night on the couch he resigned himself to, if he survives the night at all.

"I tried to be mad," she admits quietly when they come up for air.

"You had every right to be. Why aren't you?"

"Hmm, I was a little, at first. But I'm not exactly in a position to talk. I wrote that stuff, after all. I've never been a really creative person, but it helped, after my mom's death, and it was just kind of an outlet I went back to once in a while after that, when I had things I couldn't talk about or get out any other way. I kinda figured that you stumbled on the knowledge by accident from the beginning. I know you wouldn't have snooped intentionally. Maybe years ago, but, not now. And once I knew, I could have stopped, or told you, but… it was fun for me too."

"That's good," Castle says hazily, amazed by her. "I never wanted to invade your privacy, Kate, but when it dropped into my lap like that…"

At that, she slides the real her into his lap and reaches behind her, balancing precariously while she produces the knife lodged safely in its box, then fishes something out of his desk. The sound of clinking metal and rustling fabric –  _oh._

"Will you?" she requests shyly, still unable to speak about the fantasy aloud. That gives him pause. If she still can't own it verbally, that's worrying. But Beckett's never been the best with spoken word. Her preparation, her willingness to forgive him, the way it was so carefully and safely dealt with on paper, all speak for her readiness more than verbal pronouncements ever could.

"Yes," he replies sincerely, putting his full trust in her. "I'd be honored."

The author stands cautiously to avoid tripping her or dumping her on the floor, walking her backward slowly as he works on the buttons of his shirt with one hand and curls the other around her waist.

"There's just one thing I'm still confused about," Kate stops suddenly, as if only just remembering.

"What?"

"How did you send those messages when we were at work or when you were asleep next to me and all those other times?"

It's Castle's turn to laugh; it seems she's not the only one manipulating technology to her advantage.

"I used an app that allows me to queue messages, emails, notifications. Anything with a form-type input, I can type it up and schedule it. I use it on Gina to make it look like I'm working real hard on those Storm novels. I knew you'd be suspicious if you only got correspondence when we were apart, so I set it up to make it look like… I was on a whole different… timeline…" his voice dies off and fades into the air.

One by one on rapid fire, the pieces start to snap into place.

"Kate," he whirls around excitedly and dashes back into the office, "what if we've been thinking about this all wrong?"

For once, she doesn't catch on, her mind still somewhere in the bedroom and more specifically, on the one cuff she'd gotten around his wrist before he darted away.

"Wha?"

"The case. What if we've been looking at this wrong? What if Mrs. Wong didn't  _prepare_  that alibi, but she just happened upon it by good luck?"

"I don't follow, Castle," she replies, the haze of arousal clearing but leaving her no less confused.

"What if the timeline is wrong? The M.E. report from '88 says he died on July second – a Saturday - the day before the offices all closed down. He was discovered on a Wednesday, giving the body plenty of time to putrefy in a hot office. But with bodies more than a couple days old, it can be hard to tell exactly, right?"

Kate nods so he continues on, " _the widow_  said he'd been gone for two days in Denver, which if that were true, it would mean he'd have to have left on a Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, to get back on Friday, see and fight with the wife, only to be killed on Saturday as he checked in at work before the half-week company-wide holiday."

The realization dawns on Kate and she picks up where he left off.

"But none of our reports have anyone else seeing him less than  _four_  days before he supposedly died. The secretary said back then that he didn't always check in with her when he traveled, so she didn't bother checking on his office right before the holiday, thinking he'd only be back in for a few hours."

"And what happens in an office like that only when everybody is away?" he prompts her.

"The industrial air conditioners get shut off and the heat speeds up decomp, and with the lapse between when he was supposed to arrive home and when everybody came back to the office, he was too decomposed for the M.E. to tell exact T.O.D., so they just assumed Saturday was the only possible date of death."

"Exactly," confirms Castle. "He never made it to Denver. Keaton was killed in that office in late June, not July second. By the time anyone realized he was dead, the timeline was screwed up by the air conditioning slowing decomp for a few days, then speeding up rapidly when it was shut off."

"And by that time, she was already in Atlantic City and no one looked twice at her because she was already there on the day they assumed he had to have been killed," Kate finished.

"We've got her," they uttered breathlessly, in unison.

* * *

Sure enough, Mrs. Wong breaks. Theatrically, of course. Confronted with their theory, it doesn't take Beckett more than fifteen minutes before she's pouring her guts out.

They had the motive right from the beginning. Keaton had a change of heart, an attack of conscience. According to lizard-woman, it was brought on by a near-fatal cocaine overdose months before his death. Intent on turning all evidence over to the cops, he held on just a few days too long, tragically determined to right a few wrongs personally. The Mrs. found out and wasn't prepared to lose it all by exposing the secret, and so the would-be redeemer found himself with a hole in his neck for his good intent.

They head home early after officially closing the case, at long last able to be alone and enjoy a well-deserved, case-free night.

"Ever thought of writing true crime, Detective?" Castle asks conversationally as they shed their coats at the door, both damp from a spring shower that caught them by surprise on the walk home.

"Think Keaton's story would make a good one?" He nods eagerly, and she rolls her eyes in affection.

"It would. But I think I'll leave the writing to you from now on, Castle," she quips, "my days are over."

They move as one toward the office, a singular goal in mind, he's a little disappointed by the idea of never reading about her kinky fantasies again.

"I don't need it any more, Castle. I've got you," Kate admits tenderly, her happiness and honesty lighting her up, "though I'll happily be  _your_  consultant, if you like."

"Will you follow me around while I do research and annoy me and stick your nose where it doesn't belong, as all good consultants do?"

"Definitely. I'll also  _consult_  to help you with," she pauses seductively, "certain scenes, between Detective Heat and reporter extraordinaire Rook. You know. Woman's perspective."

"Deal."

Reaching the office and kicking the door shut, he steers her back toward the desk to finish what they'd started the night before. Suddenly shy, she produces his very-well-advised gift, a dull facsimile, a navy blue silk tie, and her handcuffs and sets to work on his shirt.

"You can tell me anything, you know," he murmurs, trying to ease the lingering anxiety over the fulfillment of this long-held fantasy that she can finally own and explore without the burden of secrecy or taboo.

"I know that now," she says softly. "And if I don't, I'm sure you'll just find out anyway. Too damn curious."

Castle brushes his nose to hers while a cold handcuff clicks closed around his wrist and she gently pushes him onto the crisp, cool bed, swinging herself astride him.

"Curiosity killed the cat," his voice is gravelly and low with anticipation as he whispers it out between her fiery kisses –

"But satisfaction brought it back," she finishes for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks. Hope you enjoyed this mini-fic, and that I've done the prompt justice. Though I'm quite sure this was not what was intended! This story somehow found a case along the way, the first time I've written one beginning to end. I already spot some mistakes in that part, but, hopefully they can be overlooked and the piece enjoyed for what it is – thoroughly silly and scrapped together with no planning at all.
> 
> Comments, questions, concerns, complaints and constructive criticisms, all welcome. Please review and tell me what you thought!


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